Achille Liénart
|death_place = Lille, France |buried = Lille Cathedral |parents = Achille Philippe Hyacinthe Liénart Louise Delesalle |alma_mater = |previous_post = |motto = Miles Christi Jesu |coat_of_arms = Blason Cardinal Liénart entier.svg}} Achille Liénart (7 February 1884—15 February 1973) was a French Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Bishop of Lille from 1928 to 1968, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1930. Biography Born in Lille to a bourgeois family of cloth merchants, Liénart was the second of the four children of Achille Philippe Hyacinthe Liénart and Louise Delesalle. He studied at College Saint-Joseph, the Seminary of Saint-Sulpice in Paris, the Institut Catholique de Paris, Collège de Sorbonne, and the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome. He was ordained to the priesthood on 29 June 1907, and then taught at the Seminary of Cambrai until 1910, and then at Lille until 1914. During World War I Liénart served as a chaplain to the French Army, and did pastoral work in his hometown from 1919 to 1928. As a priest, he championed social reform, trade unionism, and the Worker Priest movement.Time Magazine. Recent Deaths February 26, 1973 On 6 October 1928 he was appointed Bishop of Lille by Pope Pius XI. Liénart received his episcopal consecration on the following December 8 from Bishop Charles-Albert-Joseph Lecomte of Amiens, with Bishops Palmyre Jasoone and Maurice Feltin serving as co-consecrators, in Tourcoing. He was created Cardinal Priest of S. Sisto by Pius XI in the consistory of 30 June 1930. By coincidence, one of the first priests he ordained, on 21 September 1929, was a certain Marcel Lefebvre.Ordained priest at Lille, France, by Msgr Achille Liénart, Bishop of Lille, on 21 September 1929 Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre - Useful Information Society of Saint Pius X, District of Great Britain Liénart's and Lefebvre's paths were intertwined during the following years, even serving both on the Central Preparatory Commission for the Second Vatican Council. And it was Liénart who, as Cardinal, in 1947 consecrated Lefebvre (who had been appointed as Apostolic Vicar of Dakar in Senegal), to the Episcopate. During the German occupation, Liénart initially supported Philippe Pétain, but was greatly opposed to Nazi Germany.Leaders of the Church During the Vichy Regime. Cardinal Achille Lienart Liénart, who participated in the 1939 papal conclave, was elected President of the French Episcopal Conference in 1948, representing the Catholic Church in France, and remained in that post until 1964. An elector in the 1958 papal conclave, he was named the first Territorial Prelate of Mission de France on 13 November 1954 and later resigned from this post in 1964. An active participant of the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), Liénart was a leading liberal voice at the Council and sat on its Board of Presidency. When the Roman Curia, composed predominantly of conservative prelates, issued a list of nominees for the members of the Council's commissions, Liénart objected that nothing of the nominees' qualifications were included.Time Magazine. The Council Opens 19 October 1962Lefebvre, Marcel. "They Have Uncrowned Him". 4th ed. Kansas City: Angelus Press, 1988. Liénart, assisted by Cardinals Bernardus Johannes Alfrink and Giovanni Colombo, delivered one of the closing messages of the Council on 8 December 1965.Christus Rex. To Rulers He was also one of the cardinal electors in the 1963 papal conclave, which selected Pope Paul VI. Liénart resigned as Lille's bishop on 14 March 1968, after forty years of service. He lost, on January 1, 1971, the right to participate in a conclave, having already reached age 80. After his death at age 89, he was buried in the Cathédrale Notre-Dame-de-la-Treille. References External links *Catholic-Hierarchy Profile [[Wikipedia:Verifiability#Reliable sources| }}]] *Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church Profile Category:1884 births Category:1973 deaths Category:Catholic Church in France Category:Bishops of Lille Category:20th-century Roman Catholic bishops Category:French cardinals Category:Participants in the Second Vatican Council Category:Territorial prelates Category:French military personnel of World War I Category:Grand Officiers of the Légion d'honneur Category:French military chaplains Category:World War I chaplains Category:French Army chaplains Category:Pontifical Biblical Institute alumni Category:University of Paris alumni